What do you think the industry will look like in 5 years?
 

Just looking for some honest opinions. I know it is unpredictable, but some predictions would be great. As negative of a time this is for the airline industry, I think that it is good. It is going to force management to get there head out of their (you know what), and realize that they need to strategically plan to be successful in this industry.

I know a certain airline wont be here....and no its not MESA...

Regulated with a few missing...

I think there will be a mass exodus of 65 year olds retiring. Prior to the age restriction changed to 65, we were on the verge of a crisis due to a large percentage of pilots ready to retire. I don't think it is the only contributing factor in no one hiring right now but that along with the stagnant economy.

Dirigibles.

I predict hiring to crank up 3-4 years out. The Age 65 ISSUE will have run its course and guys will be retiring.....again. Many of those furloughed this time around will probably not come back to the business.... just my feeling on that. Fewer , larger big carriers... Jet blue and airtran will still have their niche.....

I dont like the following senario either but here it is....but DAL, CAL, UAL...etc...types that survive will concentrate on LONG haul domestic and VERY profitable domestic and International flights... the vast majority of domestic flights and feeds will be flown by National/Jet carriers like SKW, RAH, XJT and whom ever else is left. Predicting who will be around is folly as anyone could stumble and fail. The big boys will have the SKW, RAH's and other jet carriers flying slightly larger aircraft .... flame on if you must, just because we dont like it doesnt mean we shouldnt accept the reality that that is what the big boys want.... the unions need to secure better contracts for the Pilots and FAs to make the reality that for many these are career airlines.

completely different than now, just like it is every 5 yrs

Oil prices so high that flying will once again be for the wealthy only. Dramatic drawdown in industry capacity to adjust to this new paradigm.

Many wealthy dont fly commercial now ALREADY....

This could be the beginning of a new golden age. Seriously. It could be sort of like a forest fire right now cleaning out the old vegetation - hell Skybus is gone.

Hiring minimums are going to go back up to previous levels, ticket cost will increase weeding out the pajama bottom travelers, and there won't be SOOOOO many flights all the time. The airspace won't be as crowded, either.

There are too many players out there. You fly to XYZ podunk airport and you see 5 or 6 different carriers there, the crew bus from the hotel is full of pilots and FAs.

I think the oil problem sucks, but this industry needed some cleaning if you ask me. Some will be sacrificed. I am not saying this because I am safe..I am expecting my furlough notice in about 4-6 months.

But, like its been said, once age 65 runs its course, hiring will resume in some capacity. There will ALWAYS be more applicants than there are jobs in this industry. This recent "pilot shortage" was a bunch of crap. Even if there was truth to it, its all evening out now back to reality - a surplus.

Have a back up plan to weather the storm. I know I do....

I spoke to an American Check Airman yesterday. I asked him about the age 65 rule and he said that while many were staying past 60, almost as many are now taking early retirement for fear of their own retirement accounts. Better to lock in the known amount as opposed to an unknown, and possibly lesser amount. American had 7 early retirements last month.

They are in a unique postion however.... their pensions are intact.... if there was even a hint of BK.... the old guys will bail like someone yelling fire in a theater.

Future
 

I agree with those who think that capacity will shrink. Re-regulation may help the majors but it will do nothing for pilots. As ticket prices climb customers will dry up. The industry will shrink by at least 40% over the next five years. Wages will continue to sink.

Skyhigh

Being that pilot pay scales would then be an instrument of profit it would help the pilots that are still around to see it.

Which doesn't include you and me; I think that was the point skyhigh was trying make with "it doesn't help pilots". There's not much value in giving my peer a raise by losing my job now is there?

As just about everyone else has stated, the commercial airline industry is going to downsize rather dramatically due to fuel costs. I would guess that just about half the airlines out there (domestic) will be gone within 5 yrs. or so.

Or SWA will be the only domestic? And 20 regionals feeding into the major airlines that only fly international.

Yes, obviously Southwest will be dominant. The decisions they made years ago set this in motion. You look at Delta, they have obviously positioned themselves to be a strong international player while shrinking domestic ops. This was a smart move since Luv doesn't go international, it was the best way to avoid the competition. We'll still have regionals, but the regionals will downsize quite dramatically as well. Not as many big fish to feed, ticket prices will be cost-prohibitive for many of the Americans flying today. We'll probably see more airlines from foreign countries coming into the U.S. as well.

Maybe not 5 yrs. away, but we'll probably see increased use of carbon-fiber fuselages across the board for all aircraft types and the development of single pilot flight-decks where applicable in order to cut costs. Heck, they've already gone from 4, to 3, to 2, 1 is the next logical step. The public will go for it because it will ensure cheaper tickets, which, of course, in the eyes of the consumer is always more important than safety.

I wish I had a crystal ball, it's going to be very interesting to see what the airlines do in order to adapt to fuel costs.

Hmmm, if I had to sit up there by myself for a 7 hour day or more, I'd go nuts. Tellin lies is half the fun.

It will be quite a long time before the public, feds, and unions accept a single seat airliner.

I agree, all three would put up a HUGE fight with this. The NTSB would throw a fit too. I don't see the public being ok with this in the slightest, not that it would necessarily stop them from flying (they may put up a stink about these things, but from past history, they fly anyways).

1. Industry 25% smaller. UAL and US Airways will fail, but not before AA and maybe CAL go Chapter 11. AA will have massive layoffs in the Fall and will declare BK in the winter and impose a draconian contract on employees. Many of the AA leadership will leave with fat bonuses prior to BK.The DAL/NWA merger will go badly and result in parking of a large number of airplanes and large numbers of layoffs with Anderson saying "It's not the merger, it's the economy."
2. Bad recession and inflation in the US economy. Europe and Asia will follow.
3. Little to no air service at smaller airports.
4. Very few sub-100 seat airplanes.
5. Companies, aided by the government and courts, will dumb-down the profession even more.
6. The gubment will sell-out to foreigners and allow majority ownership of US carriers as well as open sky rights.
7. Commuter companies will go away and mainline will pickup that flying. However, the unions will be emasculated by the companies, government, and court system and will be working for commuter wages anyway.
8. Senior mainline pilots will sell-out junior pilots in a vain attempt to hold onto their compensation a little long. In the long run, it won't work and you'll see the pilot profession basically a truck driver status job.
9. Obama and the democrats will be running the government, but will gladly screw over the airline unions in favor of keeping tickets as cheap as practical. Obama will continue to ride-the-tiger in Iraq and Afganistan.

This. An industry that is just a shadow of what it is now due to tremendous reductions across the board. In other words, I don't think that many of us will employed in this industry in 5 years.

If all the hype about the world ending in 2012 comes true, nobody will have to worry about it. Lets just hope theres some truth to the myth.

Future thinking
 

Depending on how the government regulates runaway oil speculation, (if they do), things could be rosier than darker.

However assuming status qou the following are likely to play out:

- UAL will join Eastern, PAN AM, TWA, etc. at that big airport in the sky. Several thousand skilled workers will be out of work while Tilton and the board make off with millions they never deserved. Perhaps this will start another Enron type controversy and Tiltion will get his before a judge.

- Airways will have nagging issues with completing the merger due to slow integration of colletive barganing employees into one unit. They will face issues in PHL with WN and could face the same situtation they had in PIT and are facing in LAS due to LLC pressure. I think they will be alive when the recovery is done, but noticebly(SP) smaller, pending on what happens in PHL.

- AA will continue to show more huge losses like the blow they just dealt with booting 9000 employees. The sad part is no one will really see it coming as bad as it comes.

-Air Tran will reduce as needed in lean times and quickly ramp up when the fortunes are better

- As far a regionals go, it will be an interesting ride. Due to mergers, failures and other issues, it will be interesting to see who besides OO is around when it's all said and done.

Thanks for all the great posts and information. Here is my thought on the market outlook for the industry. First and foremost, I believe oil will substantially drop, not back to $60.00/barrel, but to about $90.00. This will resume hiring again in the airline industry, and many pilots who are about to be furloughed or a currently furloughed will leave the industry. Followed by older pilots, who are going to choose not to stay to 65 because of all the crap they have put up with. The majors are going to focus on long legged profitable routes, which will mostly be comprised of international routes. Shorter routes will be taken by the regionals (the ones that still exist). I also think that fuel will be hedged by the airlines once it drops. I also ultimately believe that the government will regulate the industry once again, and that a national seniority list will be created for pilots. While this is a horrible time for the industry and their will be many casualities, it is an eye opener for management of these airlines that they need to create better and more efficient business models for sustained success over the long term (this includes pilot pay). Anyone have any thoughts regarding what I have said? I would like to hear both positive and negative opinions.

I've changed my tune...all airlines will cease to exist in 5 yrs. time as every American household will posess a flying hybrid-electric car at that time capable of .82 mach in the flight-levels. For those who are extremely wealthy, NetJets will have acquired hyper-jets that travel in space (Think Arthur C. Clarke, 2001 Space Odyssey) that enable rapid transport around the globe. Their flight attendants will even retrieve pens that somehow float away in the zero-gravity environment of outer-space. Most of us will be kicking ourselves, wishing that we had applied to NetJets back when they only required piston time. Those pilots who saw their careers extended by 5 years due to the age 65 rule will have had their heads cryogenically frozen and reattached to their bodies years later only to come back to the cockpit due to changes in the ICAO regs that allow the piloting of a spacecraft up to the age of 6500 years, pending a thorough physical of course.

Remember, I called it here first:D

Probably not. UAL sucks in almost every way imaginable but one: They have a good liquid asset-to-obligation ratio compared to certain other airlines. If it's just a matter of bleeding out cash, most of the nationals, USAir, and AA will go long before UA. And make no mistake, chapter 11 will mean liquidation in short order in this environment. Presumeably the governemnt will intervene before UA runs out of money, simply because of the drastic loss in capacity which will have already occured.

As painful as it appears from our perspective, their pilot labor strife is not catastrophic to their operation . Their REAL problem is few liquid assets compared to their financial obligations.

I wouldn't bet on ANY small nationl carrier surviving this, except maybe Virgin thanks to sir richard's deep pockets.

Regionals will still have a niche, due to low labor costs and their control of small jets which do have a place in the hub-and-spoke system. Hard to guess exactly what the landscape will look like though...

SWA cannot replace hub-and-spoke operations with their existing business model....their point-to-point structure does not work for smaller towns (the 737 is too big). I think they currently carry about 20% of domestic traffic....even if they filled every possible niche, they would still leave a huge percentage of the population unserved. Unless they get a regional onboard and start doing hub operations...never say never.

Not going to happen in the near future...

Pilots are no longer the major cost-burden they were in the past.

Getting rid of the Navs and FE's was automation of jobs. Getting rid of one of the two pilots is a loss of redundancy...you can't automate pilot judgement and flexibility without human-level artificial intelligence (which is nowhere in sight). Our national regulatory structure will not (by policy) accept reductions in safety...changes must be enhance, or maintain existing safey levels.

Maybe someday, but not in our working lifetime. If it happens it will start with cargo anyway.

This is something for all those automation and Auto-Pilot Lovers out there to contemplate...Y'all are going to automate yourselves right out of a career...and then you'll wonder why! :(

I don't know...once in awhile it's nice to not have to bury myself in Sudoku to keep from conversing with a nutjob next to me LoL :p

That's what they said about elevators. When was the last time you saw an elevator-operator?? It'll happen quicker than you think. :mad:

4 to 3 - still two pilots at the controls.
3 to 2 - still two pilots at the controls.

I dunno about the public embracing single-pilot ops when you have CAL Capts dying on the way to Cancun, JetBlue pilots getting lased in the eyes, and suicidal EgyptAir FOs in the news.

Besides, won't that negate the age 65 thing, ie. one pilot needs to be under 60?

Then again, if the single pilot is only an FO, the company may try to push it through.

Checkout the Airbus A400
 

On a more serious note, folks should check out the all-new A400 from Airbus...4 engine t-prop, extremely efficient, capable of .70 mach, way up in the flightlevels (FL370 I believe). I'm not a huge airbus fan, but this seems like an uber-capable aircraft that burns a heckuva lot less fuel than a jet. Maybe we'll see these in our skies, or something similar, to offset fuel costs.

Seems like a sweet plane.

Airbus A400M Military Transport Aircraft – Air Military Transport at its Finest - Airbus A400M

You mean the route structure where some "common folk" flying from Detroit (5 miles from Canada) to Seattle (5 miles from Canada) wind up stuck in Phoenix, Arizona (150 miles from Mexico) with four kids and no money?

I agree w/ you guys...
 

I'm not in favor of a single-pilot flightdeck for the reasons you've all specified. Personally, I love flying w/ someone else, usually makes the job a lot of fun and less stressful. My only concern is that advancements that we're seeing w/ the military, specifically drone aircraft, will eventually find their way to the flightdecks of commercial airlines. Wasn't GPS started by our military...now we're using GPS. The military gave us the internet (Sorry Al), now we're using the internet.

It's just a hypothetical, but if the military can now launch remotely controlled 24 hr. drone missions in the middle-east, wouldn't it be possible to apply this to commercial aviation? Cost may dictate that this is at least considered/tried in order to allow for much of the American public to continue to afford commercial flying. Again, I'm opposed to the idea, but don't think for a second that there are others who have not given all of this some serious thought.

Looks like it can get into and outa some short fields, too.

Elevators operate in one dimension...as you add dimensions and complexity the problem becomes more challenging by exponential factors...very LARGE exponents.

Have you noticed that we have barely started to automate trains, and only in very controlled environments like airport terminals?

What about over-the-road vehicles? Not a lot of automation there...and fault tolerance would be easy: pull over to the side and shut down.

Take a look at thecsafety record of military UAV's and unmanned spacecraft...not good by airline standards. It comes up short by many decimal places. Any engineer knows that when it comes to reliability, the first 99% is the easy part...everything to the right of the decimal is monumentally difficult to achieve.

There's no doubt you can build an airplane to fly itself...the hard part is fault tolerance and high reliability. With human pilots you don't NEED a perfect machine...the human can almost always work around the problem.

Even if you solve all the technical problems, you would then have to re-engineer the global airspace system and deal with all the politics and human nature...we're not even getting ADS-B until 2020! Good Luck!

As I've said before, we have plenty of things to worry about, but this isn't one of them.

Exactly, I'm really hoping Boeing can pull the rabbit out of the hat w/ regards to the 787 and carbon-fiber barrel fuselages...imagine this aircraft, w/ its prop. based propulsion, mated to a fuselage that is made of light-weight carbon fiber material.

Benefits to UAVs in military use:

Reduced Weight - Pilot, bangseat, Oxygen, Survival gear, Instruments and Controls
Reduced Drag - Narrower cross-section
Low Observability - Narrower cross-section (again)
Increased Loiter time - easy shift change back at the trailer while waiting for UBL to poke his head out of the cave
Maneuverability - Flight envelope increased to above 7-9 Gs
PR - No fatalities, no POWs paraded around Hanoi or the Mog on CNN each night
Cost - Half million+ training investment per pilot not at risk of being shot down.

Cross section, maneuverability, loiter time? I don't see these factors having the same impact on the airline business.

Would the companies dump the pilots if they could save a buck? No.

But if another airline did it first? In a heartbeat.

By the way, the civilian tech flying the UAV is probably getting paid a lot more than the USAF 1LT or Capt he's replacing.

Boeing will never be able to lighten an aircraft as fast as our passengers (or FAs) are getting heavier.

Did I just type that out loud?!?:confused:

for a guy like me with turbo props in his blood.... thats a damn pretty airplane..... only problem is its been designed from the get go as a military aircraft..... less standards to meet.... plus the roll on and off capability wastes alot of space in the tail for a pax operation...

That said... Id love to fly something like that.... :D